Annabella Grau Headshot
Author: Annabella Grau | Major: Nursing | Semester: Fall 2024
My name is Annabella Grau, I am a senior student in the College of Education and Health Professions studying nursing. My projected graduation date is May 2025. After graduation I plan on practicing as a women’s health nurse in NorthWest Arkansas. After working for a couple years I plan on pursuing my doctorate in women’s health nursing, specializing in nurse midwifery. This past semester (Fall 2024) I completed research with Dr. Jamie Baum from Bumper’s College.
Our research focuses on GLP 1 receptor agonist medications, and the health effects of patients taking them. I found my mentor through a friend in Bumper’s college that took one of her courses,I reached out to her in the Fall of 2023 and she agreed to take me as an undergraduate student. I was interested in her research because I have directly seen an increase in usage of these forms of medications. Both in the healthcare field, and as a college student in everyday life. I was wanting to do research that would have a direct impact on my community and the people I will serve in my career. I myself know several people who use these medications and have had various experiences with them, both positive and negative. Dr. Baum’s research seemed like a great place to begin my research career. This research could be used in the creation of educational material patients would receive before beginning medication. When we onboard patients we take various measurements including blood pressure, heart rate, and waist circumference.
The main difficulty we ran into during our research this semester was finding participants. It was hard to find clients who were beginning the medication course at the right time to work for our research. We altered the locations and types of signage we had to advertise the trial. Moving into next semester we will most likely need to change our participant demographics in order to access more participants. I met with my faculty mentor along with our research team, including grad students and other undergraduate honors students weekly to discuss updates in our research. It was really great to see people in every level of research working on the same goal. I like having such a wide range of people working on our project because it allows us to see how people with various levels of experience solve problems. It was also very helpful to meet with such a large group of researchers because we were able to break up work and each focus on separate things.
My favorite contribution to our research this semester was an informational graphic about the importance of protein for patients starting or considering starting GLP-1 agonists. In the infographic I discussed high protein foods, the importance of protein to the everyday person as well as in a person on weight loss medications. It was nice to see a little bit of research we have worked on be presented in a tangible way. I am looking forward to helping in the creation of more educational materials moving forward in our research.